Very good points. I love your honesty and down to earth style of content 😊. About a year now in the hobby and I got ups and downs. Lots of dead fish along the way. Lost a lot of money on equipment when I could have used DIY stuff. The most striking point so far is that some resellers didn't want to sell me their fish (they keep their stock for bigger buyers) others didn't want to share their knowledge...but I guess, it's how it is in every other hobby.
Having a student mindset throughout life makes us better teachers. It's an oxymoron my late father taught me. He taught school for 40 years and kept learning things every-day, including from his students.
2 things I've learned for myself; Don't skip steps you've learned. I started adding water from my tap, at ~1ppm or less chlorine, without de-chlorinator, because my goldfish pond was drastically losing water over a long time. The goldfish were absolutely fine from what I could tell, and would play in the water. I did the same in my 40 gallon cherry barb tank, and the next day, the guy playing in the chlorinated water died. :( I was thinking my level of chlorine was safe because it was so low. I've had these barbs going on 5 years. Another thing, don't skimp on heaters. Cheap eBay heater cooked my fish early on in my fish keeping. My Eheim's are fantastic, plus I have a ground in my heated tanks now. There's so many lessons, but those ones were pretty sad. Cover and fence outdoor ponds, the fish are bright easy prey for owls. That was a terrible lesson as well.
I’m that guy who gave up on the hobby from having all types of fish and made many mistakes. However I got back into the hobby by not having big tanks and big fish 🐠 to having tetras in a large bowl with no filters and just plants 🌱. In this hobby each one teach one. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Ben and great content as always.
The one thing I learned while being in this hobby is NEVER rush ! A lesson learned the hard way was trying to rush a water change. I was pinched for time working a lot and falling behind on my maintenance schedule. In doing so, I forgot to add my water conditioner. Needless to say, before I realized what was happening, it was too late. I lost a lot of beautiful fish because of a simple oversight.
Wow 🤩 Thanks Ben that was very helpful 🙏 after five years of fish keeping I can say I went and faced all your (10) points!! sometimes more than once in few of them 😢BUT IM LEARNING!! 😂 hopefully faster than usual 😊 Thanks again for your informative videos 👍
Great video. Thank you for sharing. I wish I had been told about the nitrogen cycle in the beginning of the hobby for me. It took my dad visiting one day to explain that a tank needed to be what he called matured and went on to explain the basics of the nitrogen cycle. I killed way to many fish before that.
I had a new daughter in-law and wanted to see if I could get her interested in my fish room. I showed her the tanks and the one comment I remember was I needed "more orange and red color in my fish". First time I took a family members comment about a signfificant change seriously. As It turned out, it caused me to focus on red/orange fish and I am glad I listened. Bosmani rainbows, Koi Angelfish, and red Peacocks were some of the fish that I purchased and probably would not have tried out without the comment from my daughter in law. Moral of the story, look for that gem of a comment, even from non fishkeepers, realizing that most comments are as you say not something you should chase after.
btw, your plants, especially the anubias are looking good. My show planted tank has had a bad case of black beard algae and I have literally tried every recommendation out there. I am finally focusing on one (a Flourish Excel dip) with decent results. But before I give anyone advice I want to use it for at least 6 months of success. Quite oftern I find fish keepers get excited about some new way to do things in the hobby and make videos about it without thoroughly testing it and followers have bad results.
Left my club last year. Miss the Jedi masters there. Downsized to manageable tank count. 7 tanks is way better “for me” than the mts . Topped out at 23 tanks. Turned into “work” not fun. I now love my tanks.
Ben, This was a great 10 things you learned. I have definitely made a few of those mistakes. One was really bad and I almost quit the Hobby. I started up my first tank and jumped into AF Cichlids not doing any research. I mean I watched a few videos and this and that. I started adding them to the tank not knowing there were different AF cichlids. I was mixing Mbuna with Peacocks and CA SA Cichlids. I had no idea about water parameters or anything like that. I got to excited and Rushed and through to many fish in at a time and my entire cycle crashed and I ended up with a huge Ammonia spike and than all the fish got Columnaris and that wiped my tank fast. It killed everyone except my Green Severum I was able to save him by putting him in a different tank. I was so upset at myself I cried and literally was going to toss in the towel. I drained the tank and cleaned it out and decided that I am going to do more research on the Fish I want to potentially keep. I eventually went with CA SA Cichlids and re setup the tank and this time took my time and really did research on the fish I wanted. I didn't lose any of them over rookie mistakes. Now I setup a 100 gal Mbuna Tank and I did a lot of research and got to now the breeds and what they look like etc. When you go to the pet store and they have assorted AF cichlids now I know what breeds are what which ones not to buy for aggression. It's a much better process and the tank is up and thriving and the fish are happy and healthy. I made sure to but the stuff to match the hard water and PH that they like. Add Minerals since I have a water softener that strips out minerals and makes the PH at 7.
That's a very familiar learning curve you went through. I think you can still find some of my old videos on line where I was mixing everything. My takeaway from your comment it twofold: Patience. Never rush it, no matter how bad you want it, and next, there are two ways to learn. One is proactive and preventative and the other is reactive and essentially asks, "What the heck just happened?" Most fish keepers learn the second way, including me way back when.
Hi maybe you can explain what happened to NorthFinn in Europe? I’m from Norway. It’s almost impossible to get it. I have to order just from USA. And it becomes very very expensive.
Left my club last year. Miss the Jedi masters there. Downsized to manageable tank count. 7 tanks is way better “for me” than the mts . Topped out at 23 tanks. Turned into “work” not fun. I now love my tanks.
![A Full Fish Room *LAP* [Every Fish, Every Tank]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jw67DPcARTk/mqdefault.jpg)
Thats all great advice. Thanks for sharing
I have always respected your advice, you have been a real help for me getting back into the hobby! 🐠🤓🎸
good points Ben
thanks for all great advice ben just started up one month ago after 35 years all going well take care jeff from the UK...
Thanks for your content. Always nice to have someone to bounce things off of. Never stop learning.
Very good points. I love your honesty and down to earth style of content 😊.
About a year now in the hobby and I got ups and downs. Lots of dead fish along the way. Lost a lot of money on equipment when I could have used DIY stuff. The most striking point so far is that some resellers didn't want to sell me their fish (they keep their stock for bigger buyers) others didn't want to share their knowledge...but I guess, it's how it is in every other hobby.
Can't wait for the live stream woot woot lol
Having a student mindset throughout life makes us better teachers. It's an oxymoron my late father taught me. He taught school for 40 years and kept learning things every-day, including from his students.
A very wise man indeed!
2 things I've learned for myself;
Don't skip steps you've learned. I started adding water from my tap, at ~1ppm or less chlorine, without de-chlorinator, because my goldfish pond was drastically losing water over a long time. The goldfish were absolutely fine from what I could tell, and would play in the water. I did the same in my 40 gallon cherry barb tank, and the next day, the guy playing in the chlorinated water died. :( I was thinking my level of chlorine was safe because it was so low. I've had these barbs going on 5 years.
Another thing, don't skimp on heaters. Cheap eBay heater cooked my fish early on in my fish keeping. My Eheim's are fantastic, plus I have a ground in my heated tanks now.
There's so many lessons, but those ones were pretty sad. Cover and fence outdoor ponds, the fish are bright easy prey for owls. That was a terrible lesson as well.
Good vid ben
I’m that guy who gave up on the hobby from having all types of fish and made many mistakes. However I got back into the hobby by not having big tanks and big fish 🐠 to having tetras in a large bowl with no filters and just plants 🌱. In this hobby each one teach one. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Ben and great content as always.
Thanks for the info!
The one thing I learned while being in this hobby is NEVER rush ! A lesson learned the hard way was trying to rush a water change. I was pinched for time working a lot and falling behind on my maintenance schedule. In doing so, I forgot to add my water conditioner. Needless to say, before I realized what was happening, it was too late. I lost a lot of beautiful fish because of a simple oversight.
Your first sentence should be on the wall of every fish room! Truth!
Thanks!
Wow 🤩
Thanks Ben that was very helpful 🙏 after five years of fish keeping I can say I went and faced all your (10) points!! sometimes more than once in few of them 😢BUT IM LEARNING!! 😂 hopefully faster than usual 😊
Thanks again for your informative videos 👍
Great video. Thank you for sharing. I wish I had been told about the nitrogen cycle in the beginning of the hobby for me. It took my dad visiting one day to explain that a tank needed to be what he called matured and went on to explain the basics of the nitrogen cycle. I killed way to many fish before that.
Thank you Warren. The Nitrogen Cycle. Not knowing about that has killed off more fish and fish keepers than anything else I can think of.
I had a new daughter in-law and wanted to see if I could get her interested in my fish room. I showed her the tanks and the one comment I remember was I needed "more orange and red color in my fish". First time I took a family members comment about a signfificant change seriously. As It turned out, it caused me to focus on red/orange fish and I am glad I listened. Bosmani rainbows, Koi Angelfish, and red Peacocks were some of the fish that I purchased and probably would not have tried out without the comment from my daughter in law. Moral of the story, look for that gem of a comment, even from non fishkeepers, realizing that most comments are as you say not something you should chase after.
btw, your plants, especially the anubias are looking good. My show planted tank has had a bad case of black beard algae and I have literally tried every recommendation out there. I am finally focusing on one (a Flourish Excel dip) with decent results. But before I give anyone advice I want to use it for at least 6 months of success. Quite oftern I find fish keepers get excited about some new way to do things in the hobby and make videos about it without thoroughly testing it and followers have bad results.
Veterans make Rookie mistakes; anyone can learn from their mistakes; a wise man can learn from mistakes made by others.
Left my club last year. Miss the Jedi masters there. Downsized to manageable tank count. 7 tanks is way better “for me” than the mts . Topped out at 23 tanks. Turned into “work” not fun. I now love my tanks.
Mine would be the fact that Prazipro is all I need to keep my fish free of internal parasites. It’s been smooth sailing ever since.
👍🏻👍🏻
Ben,
This was a great 10 things you learned. I have definitely made a few of those mistakes. One was really bad and I almost quit the Hobby. I started up my first tank and jumped into AF Cichlids not doing any research. I mean I watched a few videos and this and that. I started adding them to the tank not knowing there were different AF cichlids. I was mixing Mbuna with Peacocks and CA SA Cichlids. I had no idea about water parameters or anything like that. I got to excited and Rushed and through to many fish in at a time and my entire cycle crashed and I ended up with a huge Ammonia spike and than all the fish got Columnaris and that wiped my tank fast. It killed everyone except my Green Severum I was able to save him by putting him in a different tank. I was so upset at myself I cried and literally was going to toss in the towel. I drained the tank and cleaned it out and decided that I am going to do more research on the Fish I want to potentially keep. I eventually went with CA SA Cichlids and re setup the tank and this time took my time and really did research on the fish I wanted. I didn't lose any of them over rookie mistakes. Now I setup a 100 gal Mbuna Tank and I did a lot of research and got to now the breeds and what they look like etc. When you go to the pet store and they have assorted AF cichlids now I know what breeds are what which ones not to buy for aggression. It's a much better process and the tank is up and thriving and the fish are happy and healthy. I made sure to but the stuff to match the hard water and PH that they like. Add Minerals since I have a water softener that strips out minerals and makes the PH at 7.
That's a very familiar learning curve you went through. I think you can still find some of my old videos on line where I was mixing everything. My takeaway from your comment it twofold: Patience. Never rush it, no matter how bad you want it, and next, there are two ways to learn. One is proactive and preventative and the other is reactive and essentially asks, "What the heck just happened?"
Most fish keepers learn the second way, including me way back when.
I learned yesterday, that you can put Neosporin on fish wounds. I would have never thought of doing that. I will still be to afraid to try it though.
Hi Ben, great advice and content. Not a fish comment, but where did you get the bobble head of yourself done?
Hi maybe you can explain what happened to NorthFinn in Europe? I’m from Norway. It’s almost impossible to get it. I have to order just from USA. And it becomes very very expensive.
Mind was nitrate
Yeah you don't need that
First yaaa lol🎉
Left my club last year. Miss the Jedi masters there. Downsized to manageable tank count. 7 tanks is way better “for me” than the mts . Topped out at 23 tanks. Turned into “work” not fun. I now love my tanks.
Very smart move!